1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a louver system for use in ventilating ships, buildings, and other confined spaces. Specifically, this invention relates to a modular louver system where the louver frame and the louver vanes are modular.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to ventilate the interior space of a ship or a building, it is a common practice to install a louver over an opening to allow air to flow into and out of the confined space. By using a louver, the air is allowed to flow into the space while still providing a covering for the opening to prevent unwanted intrusion from outside elements. As such, louvers provide an economical means to vent a confined space and enjoy widespread use in the building industry, at industrial facilities, and for ventilating machinery spaces on ships.
Previous designs for louver systems required that louvers contain specially manufactured items. For instance, certain designs such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,349,799, and 4,592,271 require the use of previously-build solid frames and have the louver vanes built into these solid frames. This approach, while advantageous for covering numerous openings of uniform size, is cost prohibitive where the openings are of varied sizes.
Other designs attempted to overcome this shortcoming by creating more modular frames. Some, such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,826,393 use pre-sized sets of louver vanes that are connected prior to installation to make a large enough louver to cover a large opening. However, while this system eliminates the need for pre-built frames, since the louver vane sets are pre-made, this system is still only practicable where the sizes of the openings are essentially similar.
In order to create louver systems that are truly adaptable to multiple openings, more modular systems have been suggested. These systems rely upon modular frames, and mechanisms to lock individual louver vanes into these modular frames. Some systems, such as those suggested by U.S. Pat. No. 5,839,244 rely upon special notches made in the modular frames. These notches provide a resting place for individual louver vanes. Other solutions such as that suggested by U.S. Pat. No. 5,072,561 rely upon systems of bosses or projections on each modular frame. These bosses provide support for the louver vanes. However, these solutions require after-production tooling of the modular frames in order to create the notches or attach bosses. In addition, fitting louver vanes into these notches or bosses can be time consuming.
In order to create a bracketless modular louver, other designs such as U.S. Pat. No. 3,968,738 rely upon special retaining frames having flanges that fit into the modular frame members. These modular frame members have t-shaped channels, and the retaining frame flanges would slide into the t-shaped channels, thus using the t-shaped channel. The retaining frames have pre-cut notches that are designed to support individual louver frames. In this way, the retaining frame supports the louver vanes, and the retaining frame is supported by t-shaped channel of the modular frame. However, while this approach is entirely modular and requires little post-production work, inserting louver vanes into these notches takes a significant amount of time, which also makes them time-consuming to install.
In order to reduce the time needed to install louvers, other solutions have included stacking the louver vanes on top of one another, and separating them by spacers. For instance, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,688,767, the design is for a louvered wall where spacers separate the louver vanes. However, these spacers are not highly restrained against lateral movement, and instead rely largely upon gravity and adhesives to restrain the movement of the louver vanes.
An additional louver design, shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,498,660, uses louver vanes with integral spacers to create a louver fence. These spacers also act as attachments to fence posts. However, this design does not provide for the use of either t-shaped channels in the fence posts to provide lateral support to the louver frames, or to use modular frames members outside of the fence posts at all in the construction of the louver fence. Since modular frames are generally preferred when installing louver systems into structures instead of using them as fences, this louver fence solution is impractical for non-fence uses.
Lastly, a further design is suggested by U.S. Pat. No. 2,987,985, which suggests the use of a modular frame in combination with spacers that support the louver vanes. The spacers are locked into t-shaped channels in the modular frames in order to reduce the lateral movement of the spacers. However, there is no direct way to prevent the louver vanes from moving laterally. As such, this system relies upon applying a compressive force upon the stacked louver vane and spacer assembly.
As such, there is no known modular louver vane system that is sufficiently modular to allow installation over multiple non-standard openings, and that provides direct lateral support to louver vanes through the use of modular frames.